


twisted every way

by inkin_brushes



Series: Immortals (Vamp AU) [43]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6283108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkin_brushes/pseuds/inkin_brushes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Damn you all for making me do this.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	twisted every way

**Author's Note:**

> writing this fic was hard because i’d already written a version of it that we both really loved and i basically just had to ignore it all, i have never had to kILL MY DARLINGS LIKE I DID THIS ONE.

Hongbin shook his head as he padded through the tunnels, shaking off the water that was clinging to his hair, droplets flinging about black in the darkness. The night hadn’t been wet until they were already out, the rain catching them unawares, and driving most of their prey indoors. They had managed to both feed, but not before they had become soaked through.   
  
“You look like a wet dog,” Wonshik remarked. Hongbin gave him a look over his shoulder. It was unimpressed, but the way the water was making his hair cling to his forehead, loose curls falling over his eyes, it turned the look almost coy. Wonshik grinned.  
  
“Yeah, well, you smell like one,” he said, and he _sounded_ unimpressed, even if there was amusement in his eyes. Wonshik flitted up behind him and rubbed his damp hair into the back of Hongbin’s neck, who made a noise only slightly more manly than a squeal. It echoed in the tunnels, along with Wonshik’s chuckles.  
  
They fell silent as they got nearer to the front door of their home, Jaehwan’s aura palpable even from here. Of course he’d be home, but it still made Wonshik wince. Normally he and Hongbin would have stayed out until the sun was readying itself to rise, but with the rain pouring down, that wasn’t an option. There weren’t many things to do at home now, they had to be too careful to tiptoe around, unless they were holed up in their room. And where Taekwoon and Hakyeon seemed perfectly content to hole themselves up their own little hovel and have ridiculous amounts of sex, Hongbin was of the opinion that there could, in fact, be too much of a good thing.   
  
Wonshik did not share this opinion.   
  
Hongbin pulled away as they neared the front door. He put his hand on the handle and then stopped, frowning. “What is it?” Wonshik asked, drawing nearer.   
  
“I can smell Sanghyuk,” Hongbin murmured, and Wonshik felt dread settle heavily in his stomach.   
  
A moment later Hongbin opened the door and then Wonshik could smell it too, the scent of Sanghyuk, more striking for its recent absence. There didn’t seem to be any sign of him around, as they stepped into the house, the front door swinging shut behind them. But then that wasn’t a proper indicator that Sanghyuk wasn’t still here. Jaehwan may have purchased the silencing charms to save his own ears, but they served the same admirable purpose for Wonshik.   
  
It was not reassuring to smell Sanghyuk here again. He hadn’t come over in weeks and Wonshik had been happy to keep things that way. It had seemed to him that Sanghyuk had been done with Jaehwan, and Wonshik couldn’t blame him. The way things currently were, a rabid dog had more charm than Jaehwan did.   
  
The playful mood between them had utterly disappeared, to be replaced with that oppressive, suffocating fog of apprehension that seemed to be a cloud over them always, in this place now. Hongbin looked a little confused, like the thought of Sanghyuk being around was beyond his understanding. He took a few hesitating steps forward and then paused, wincing as he took in the dampness of his jeans.   
  
“I don’t hear any screaming, so, for now this— this isn’t our business, I guess. So I’m going to take a shower,” he announced, all concern gone in the face of his more pressing problem. Wonshik was not quite so capable of pushing it to the back of his mind, but even without a sense of temperature, wet denim was still decidedly unpleasant. He could do with a shower himself, and perhaps he could convince Hongbin to share.   
  
He followed Hongbin through the living room and into the hallway, the two of them walking just faster than human pace, Wonshik a mere step behind. It meant that he had no warning when Hongbin stopped very suddenly, movement arrested into complete stillness. Wonshik slammed into the back of him and then took a step back, wincing.   
  
“Sorry,” he muttered. Hongbin didn’t move or give any indication that he had noticed Wonshik walking into the back of him. His chin was tilted a little into the air, putting Wonshik in mind of a hunting dog. They were a few steps away from Jaehwan’s bedroom door. “What is it?”   
  
“Blood,” Hongbin said. His teeth were gritted every so slightly. Wonshik reached out and cupped his hand around his elbow, comforting even though it probably made no difference. Hongbin let out a long breath through his nose and then added, “Vampire blood.”   
  
That wasn’t necessarily unusual, Jaehwan had come home drenched in the stuff before. Wonshik took a couple of steps forward until he too could smell it, coming from behind the closed door, and then gasped out, “Holy shit, it’s—”  
  
“It’s Jaehwan’s blood,” Hongbin finished for him, staring at the door.  
  
Wonshik inhaled again. “It smells— thick.” He turned wide eyes on Hongbin, thinking of the very faint smell of human under all the copper. “Do you— do you think Sanghyuk finally staked him? I— don’t you think I’d have felt it, if he’d been killed?”  
  
“I think so. But he doesn’t have to have been killed for his blood to be everywhere,” Hongbin muttered darkly and Wonshik had a sudden vision of Jaehwan’s blood sinking into the rug he still complained was ruined, and had to admit he had a point.   
  
They paused, faltering, unsure what exactly to do as they both stared at the door, hearing no sound coming from behind the wood. “We— we should check on him,” Hongbin said softly, already reaching for the door knob. “Just in case.” Wonshik thought maybe they should knock first, just in case Jaehwan wasn’t, in fact, dead or incapacitated. Because if he was aware then he was probably going to be in a foul mood.  
  
But Hongbin was already pulling the door open, stepping forward, before stuttering to a stop. “Jaehwan,” Hongbin said, and then fell silent, looking stricken.   
  
Wonshik stepped up to his side, expecting a pool of blood and Jaehwan’s staked body to be splayed on the carpet, and so was confused by what he was actually seeing. Jaehwan was on his bed, not on the floor, and he was moving, sitting up, almost sluggish, from where he had apparently flung himself at some point and proceeded to cry until his pillowcase and bed sheets looked like they had been witness to a particularly gruesome murder.   
  
“Are you _crying_?” Wonshik blurted out, the surprise of the sight overcoming everything else. Beside him, Hongbin was practically gaping.   
  
Jaehwan’s face twisted, angry and— ashamed. “Yes,” he bit out. “Now that you’ve seen, get out.”  
  
“Why are you crying?” Wonshik asked, more automatically than anything else. The majority of him was still struggling to accept this as reality.   
  
“Because—” Jaehwan choked himself off. “Oh, just fuck off and let me die already, would you? And take your precious Crazy with you.”  
  
Wonshik frowned, both at the use of Hongbin’s nickname and at the words. He stepped forward, putting out a hand, perhaps to touch Jaehwan’s shoulder, he barely even knew himself, but then Jaehwan snarled something at him, half-curse, half-order, and Wonshik felt himself leaving, his legs carrying him out of the door and back into the hallway.   
  
Hongbin, though not under the same compulsion, fled with Wonshik, and shut the door behind them quietly. He gave Wonshik a wide-eyed look. “That was— disconcerting,” he said, just more than a whisper.   
  
Wonshik frowned, smarting at being ordered around like he had been but concerned all the same. Jaehwan’s tantrums were usually public affairs, designed to cause the most amount of drama in the best possible way. But this— this was something different. This wasn’t theatrics. Something was actually wrong. Wonshik felt shaken, like he had intruded on a particularly intimate moment.   
  
He hadn’t known Jaehwan could cry.  
  
“What do we do?” he asked.   
  
Hongbin shrugged with one of his shoulders. The casual movement was at odds with the worried twist of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he admitted.   
  
——  
  
Wonshik pressed his fingers to the balls of Hongbin’s feet, massaging gently. “What do you think?” he asked, eyes on Hongbin’s face. “He’s— it’s been three nights, and he hasn’t come out. What do we do? He— he has to eat sometime.”  
  
Hongbin, laying across the couch with his feet in Wonshik’s lap, said, “I still don’t know. He can last longer than us without food but— I don’t know exactly how long.”   
  
Wonshik’s hands kept rubbing at Hongbin’s feet, but the movement was absentminded. He didn’t know how long Jaehwan could last either. Hakyeon had said something about Elimias only really needing to feed every month or two, but that was with the supplement of nightly blood bags— which Jaehwan had not come out to get. He was, fully, starving himself. And if he was still crying, then he would be depleting himself even faster.   
  
“If he loses control,” he said slowly, “then I can’t— neither of us would be able to control him.”  
  
Hongbin nodded, mouth twisting. “My thoughts exactly. He’s too strong. The both of us together wouldn’t be enough to control him. He’d cause complete havoc if he— if he snapped, like I do. And he would be vulnerable like that, from hunters or the VCF.”   
  
Wonshik knew. The easiest vampires to kill or capture were the ones caught up in the bloodlust, it caused them to make dumb mistakes when it came to their prey, not mentally aware enough to protect themselves from threats. Jaehwan’s strength would be an asset but not enough, Wonshik knew.   
  
The initial feeling of apprehension and concern had grown with each passing night that Jaehwan hadn’t come out of his room. Wonshik knew they had to do something. Jaehwan was— well, he was Jaehwan, but Wonshik couldn’t stand aside and watch him waste away, no matter how much of a bastard Jaehwan could be. He called Hakyeon a bleeding heart but the truth was that he was just as bad.   
  
Hongbin pulled his feet from Wonshik’s lap and stood, graceful and oily. “I’m going to bring him a blood bag and— see if I can’t get him to drink it,” he said firmly, already walking in the direction of the kitchen. “And if he doesn’t we can try and maybe get him to come hunting with us or— or bring him someone.”   
  
Jaehwan had never wanted to come hunting with them even in the best of times; Wonshik doubted he would want anything to do with it now. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked, when Hongbin reappeared holding a blood bag.   
  
Something passed across Hongbin’s face, lingering in his eyes. It almost looked like fear. “No,” he murmured, but he headed for Jaehwan’s bedroom anyway.   
  
He was already knocking on the door when Wonshik reached him. This time he at least waited to hear if there was going to be a response, and when there was nothing, Hongbin pulled open the door and stepped inside. His shoulders were squared like he was going into battle.   
  
The room was rank with the stench of vampire blood. When Jaehwan sat up in his bed to see who was intruding, his face was streaked with dry blood trails, where his tears had dried during the day, overlain with fresh tracks already from tonight. He looked like he hadn’t left his bed in all the days that Wonshik and Hongbin had been tiptoeing around outside, still in the same clothes they’d seen him in last, hair hanging in stringy strands over a face gone strikingly gaunt. In a word, he looked awful.   
  
Hongbin was apparently determined to not let this affect him this time. He took in the sight in front of him swiftly, like it was a mountain he had to climb. “Jaehwan,” he said, softly but with a forced casualness apparent. “You’ve— you haven’t eaten in the last few days, so we brought you a blood bag.” He flit forward, fast, as fast as he could, to set the blood bag on the bed by Jaehwan’s side, before retreating back to Wonshik’s side. Jaehwan didn’t move through this, just stared at them, and Wonshik was relieved and yet also utterly unnerved. Jaehwan looked like a rabid dog in a trap, feral and ready to shred something. “We thought, maybe, you could come hunting with us? You— you’ve lost a lot of blood, Jaehwan.”  
  
Jaehwan didn’t touch the blood bag, didn’t give any indication he was aware it was beside him, choosing instead to blink slowly at them, mouth open slightly. His fangs were run out. “Get out,” he rasped.   
  
Wonshik stepped forward and took Hongbin’s lower arm, fingers brushing the inside of his wrist. “Hongbin—” he started in a murmur, sensing they should go. He didn’t like this.  
  
“Jaehwan, you have to feed,” Hongbin said, ignoring Wonshik. “I don’t know what’s happened but you’re going to hurt yourself like this, you’re going to lose control—”  
  
Something flew through the air and exploded against the wall, near enough that they were both forced to jump away from the shower of glass. They stared down at the remains of one of the heavy candle holders that Jaehwan kept by the side of his bed, then back at Jaehwan.   
  
“Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you care about me,” he said hoarsely. “Get out and leave me to die if I wish to do so.”   
  
“Jaehwan—” Hongbin began, cut off when Jaehwan snarled and threw another candle holder, close enough this time that Wonshik felt the brush of displaced air as it flew past his cheek. It would have caved his skull in if it had hit him.   
  
“Get out before I kill you,” Jaehwan hissed, enough sincerity in his voice that Wonshik felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Wonshik grabbed Hongbin by the upper arm, pulling him back out the door, past the glass all over the floor. Hongbin didn’t fight it. The door swung shut behind them and only then did Wonshik let Hongbin go, utterly shaken.   
  
Hongbin folded his arms, hands picking at the skin on his elbows. His eyes were wide, avoiding looking at Wonshik’s face. Wonshik reached out and stopped him, a habit from when Hongbin was human and could cause damage to himself. “I’m sorry,” Wonshik said, “I don’t think he’d actually kill us but— he’s not right.”  
  
Hongbin glanced at him, for a moment, and then gave Wonshik a tense smile. “Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t sound particularly convinced. He straightened up a moment later and titled his head to the side, thinking. “I— there’s nothing we can do, not on our own. We’re going to have to tell Taekwoon,” he said, very soft. “He’s the only one strong enough to control Jaehwan, if something goes wrong.”   
  
“It’s too late now,” Wonshik said. There was glass sprayed outside the closed door too, and he didn’t want to look at it. “We’ll go see him tomorrow.”   
  
——  
  
Hakyeon arched up, fingernails pressing into Taekwoon’s shoulders. Taekwoon’s mouth was hot against his throat, sucking a bruise into his skin which would fade within moments. He could feel the slight drag of Taekwoon’s fangs, and he wanted— he _wanted_ —  
  
Taekwoon pulled away sharply, head turning to the side. Hakyeon groaned at him and tried to tug him back. “What? What is it?”   
  
“Someone is here,” Taekwoon murmured, and rolled away smoothly, avoiding Hakyeon’s grabbing hands. Hakyeon flopped back down on the bed, not caring that he was half-naked. Only Wonshik and Hongbin ever came to see them here, and they could deal with it.   
  
A moment later his shirt hit him in the face. Hakyeon ignored it.   
  
A few seconds later there was a knock on the front door, and he heard Taekwoon go to answer it. Hakyeon didn’t move, in protest over being interrupted. He could practically feel Hongbin’s exasperated look in his direction.   
  
“Hakyeon, we wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t important,” he said with a sigh. Hakyeon rolled his eyes. That wasn’t true. They’d interrupted a lot over the months for things that weren’t important. But he stood up anyway, tugging his shirt over his head as he did so.   
  
Wonshik was standing, arms folded across his chest, expression drawn and tight. Taekwoon was near the kitchen, face closed off. Hongbin had sat down on the couch, and Hakyeon sat down with him, letting his head loll against the back. “Well, what is it?”   
  
“It’s Jaehwan,” said Wonshik. Hakyeon fought the urge to roll his eyes again. Jaehwan was not a sufficient reason for his quality time with Taekwoon to be interrupted. Before he could voice this, Wonshik was adding, “Something happened with him and Sanghyuk.”   
  
That made Hakyeon raise his head quickly, sitting up at attention. “What? Is Sanghyuk okay?” Fuck, if Jaehwan had finally cracked and hurt him—  
  
Wonshik was holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Yeah, it’s not that. It’s not— Sanghyuk came over a few days ago. We were out when he did so, and only realised he’d been there because we could smell him, a bit.”  
  
Hakyeon closed his eyes, sighing softly. “I thought they were done. Sanghyuk— he’s suffered enough.”  
  
“That’s the thing,” Wonshik said, before stopping, frowning like he had to think about how to say whatever was on his mind. “We— we think they are done, but we also think something— happened.”  
  
“He’s— when we came home we found Jaehwan crying,” Hongbin said very softly. “It’s been three days and he hasn’t stopped. He’s not feeding, he’s just locked himself in his bedroom won’t stop crying. We tried to talk to him, but he’s— he’s not in a right state of mind, he’s volatile, and we’re kind of afraid of what he could do to us.” He lifted a hand and touched his throat. “We can’t make him stop.”   
  
Hakyeon gaped at them, unable to reconcile the thought of Jaehwan crying at all, let alone for days.  
  
“We’re worried that he’s going to— well.” Wonshik glanced at Hongbin quickly. “If something goes wrong, we don’t think we’ll be able to restrain him.”   
  
Taekwoon had been silent up until now, looking at them intently. His face was almost unreadable, even to Hakyeon, and it took him a moment to realise the overriding emotion in his eyes was worry. “What do you think happened with Sanghyuk?”   
  
“Honestly, we don’t know,” Hongbin said, sighing heavily and seeming to deflate a little, like recounting the story had exhausted him.  
  
“It’s just, when Jaehwan has a tantrum, he wants us to know about this,” Wonshik said. “He makes it public, you all know that. This is different. I know I shouldn’t be, not for him, but I’m worried, I really am.”   
  
“We could ask Sanghyuk?” Hakyeon suggested, preemptively wincing at the thought. “He doesn’t like us butting in, but at this point, if Jaehwan is starving himself, he could become a danger, so we can’t just leave it. Sanghyuk has a day off work coming up soon, I can speak to him then.”  
  
“I’d want to speak to him as well,” Wonshik murmured, and Hongbin nodded, which made Hakyeon sigh. He didn’t want Sanghyuk to think they were staging an intervention or anything like that, but he knew this concerned them too. He couldn’t very well order them out of it.  
  
Taekwoon seemed to take a moment to think and then he flitted to the door, reaching down to pull on a pair of boots. Hakyeon stood. “Where are you going?”   
  
“I’m going to see Jaehwan,” he said quietly. “I shall speak with him, now.” He straightened up, looking at Hakyeon. “Perhaps we can find out from him what has happened here, see if I can’t fix it, so we do not have to trouble Sanghyuk with it. As you said before, he has been dragged through enough.”   
  
“I’m coming too,” Hakyeon said firmly.   
  
Taekwoon’s voice did the thing where he knew he was saying something that Hakyeon wouldn’t like. “I don’t think—”  
  
“Too bad,” Hakyeon said, before he turned to head towards the door, yanking his shoes on and then going out into the tunnels.   
  
He heard Taekwoon sigh, heard him murmur to Wonshik and Hongbin to stay here, and followed Hakyeon out into the night.  
  
They travelled mostly in silence, the way familiar by now. Hakyeon moved as fast as he could, as best as he could, slipping through the shadows, and Taekwoon kept his speed to Hakyeon’s level. They slowed once they were down in the tunnels that lead to Jaehwan’s house, making their way to the front door. The silence seemed to press down against Hakyeon suddenly, now that they were no longer shifting through the night like smoke, and were instead padding down long concrete halls.   
  
“Are you worried for him?” Hakyeon asked softly.   
  
Taekwon was silent for a long time, almost until they were at the door. “Yes,” he said.   
  
“Even after all the horrible things he has said and done to you.”  
  
Taekwoon paused, his hand against the handle to the front door. Jaehwan had thought it a great joke a few months back to ward the front door against Hakyeon’s touch — a precaution, he had said — and although it had now been lifted, Hakyeon still avoided touching it, just in case.   
  
“He is my brother,” Taekwoon said eventually, voice barely more than a whisper. “It may not make sense but— he is my brother, and in the past, in times of need, we have often been all the other has. If he is truly in pain, then I should not like to leave him that way.”   
  
He was right; it didn’t make sense, at least not to Hakyeon, not after everything that Jaehwan had done, all of the cruel words that he had thrown Taekwoon’s way. But there were lifetimes of history there that Hakyeon had not be around for, as much as he wished that he could have been.   
  
Taekwoon brushed Hakyeon’s hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead. “It is painful, for our kind to love a human. I was given some comfort, in the knowledge that you, at least, loved me, even if our time together was limited. Jaehwan does not have even that. Sanghyuk is headed for the grave, and if they have truly split, now, then Jaehwan does not have anything to comfort himself with. He cannot hold Sanghyuk in his arms, cannot take solace in what time they have left. I think about how much it hurt preparing myself for the knowledge of your death, even secure in knowing that you loved me, and the pain I felt then must be like the pain he feels now. It must be unbearable.”  
  
“Oh,” Hakyeon murmured, dumbly, leaning into Taekwoon’s touch for a moment.  
  
Taekwoon pulled back before Hakyeon was quite ready for him to do so. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, the house eerily still and silent. Hakyeon came close behind him, his front almost against Taekwoon’s back, as the door shut behind them with a soft click. “What—”  
  
Jaehwan appeared in the entryway to the hall. He had lost weight since they had last seen him, his face gaunt, hair falling greasy and limp over his eyes. The neckline of his shirt was crusty with dried blood. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed to the two of them. “Get the fuck out,” he said in a hoarse voice, like there was no longer any moisture in his throat.   
  
“Jaehwan,” Taekwoon said. He fell silent again. He was staring, clearly shaken. Hakyeon couldn’t find any words; no matter how Wonshik and Hongbin described it, this was worse than he had imagined.   
  
“I told you to _leave_!” Jaehwan screamed suddenly. He moved forward, vampire-fast, stopping only when Taekwoon flung an arm out across Hakyeon. “I don’t want you here! I don’t want _him_ here!” He jabbed a finger at Hakyeon.   
  
“We came because we were concerned.” Taekwoon began.  
  
“I assume you heard from my darling son,” Jaehwan spat. “I should have known he would run off and tattle on me to brother dearest, instead of leaving me to die like I asked him to.”   
  
“Do you wish to die?” Taekwoon asked sharply. “You know that starvation is not the way.”   
  
“Do you think that I care?” Jaehwan yelled. “Oh, come now, do you honestly expect me to believe that you truly care about me? Either of you? My brother, who has smashed my skull into the floor, or _you_ —” he spat in Hakyeon’s direction, who took a step back, disconcerted by how _much_ antagonism he was being shown — “who tried to stab me in the heart while I slept? Save me the sentimentalities. None of you care, not really.”  
  
Taekwoon was staring him, like he wasn’t sure how to deal with a Jaehwan like this. Jaehwan, who had always taken delicate care to uphold his aloof facade, his air of arrogance and composure. Jaehwan who held his pride above all else. It was all gone, and it was clear Taekwoon was lost in the face of it. For the first time Hakyeon thought he saw how much comfort Taekwoon took in the usual routine of things. It was not a way of communicating that he understood, but it had been the only way Taekwoon knew how.   
  
“Did something happen with Sanghyuk?” Hakyeon asked quietly.   
  
Jaehwan gave an inarticulate cry of rage and charged forward, presumably towards Hakyeon, though it was hard to tell. A second later, Taekwoon had him against the wall, his arm across Jaehwan’s chest, pinning him. The sound made when Jaehwan’s back connected to the wall made Hakyeon wince, but it did not seem to be as rough as usual.   
  
All of the fight seemed to go out of Jaehwan in an instant. He started to cry again, head turned to the side so that he wouldn’t have to look at either of them, his hands clutching at Taekwoon’s arm hard enough that Hakyeon could see the press of his nails against Taekwoon’s skin.   
  
“Please,” he whispered. “If you truly care, you’ll leave me be.”   
  
There was silence for a long minute, time frozen. Then Taekwoon backed away, releasing Jaehwan from his hold. Jaehwan immediately sank down to the floor, burying his head in his knees to avoid their eyes.   
  
Taekwoon turned and held out his hand. Hakyeon took it, surprised by how much he was shaking. “Come,” Taekwoon murmured, and drew Hakyeon away, back out into the tunnels.   
  
Hakyeon waited until they were back on the street before he said, unsteadily, “That— that was something.”   
  
Taekwoon inclined his head, seeming unsettled.   
  
“Wonshik and Hongbin were right, something happened with Sanghyuk.”  
  
“Yes,” Taekwoon said. “We shall need to speak with him.”   
  
——  
  
Sanghyuk had created a vague sort of blanket fort on his couch and had retreated in there earlier that night with his laptop and a carton of Chinese take-out. He’d binged watched his way through an entire series of Criminal Minds and was only just starting to wind down, feeling somewhat more relaxed than he had in days.   
  
He hadn’t wanted to take the night off work. As always, working took his mind off what had happened with Jaehwan, and he had dearly needed the distraction. Every time he lay down to sleep, every time he got a moment of peace and quiet, his brain would replay their last conversation over and over in his head, until his brain was buzzing with it. Working all night was the only way to exhaust himself enough to sleep.   
  
It wasn’t that he regretted anything that he had said or done, nor his reaction to Jaehwan’s words. He had only spoken the truth, and he felt like something they had needed, after so long, was the truth. He didn’t regret cutting ties with Jaehwan, either, he had known going in what the outcome would end up being.  
  
But he couldn’t forget the look on Jaehwan’s face, when he’d said it. The look in Jaehwan’s eyes had been familiar. He’d seen it in his own of late. It was the haunting gaze of someone looking out through shattered glass. Sanghyuk knew it was Jaehwan’s own fault, but there was still an edge of guilt, there, and he had a sadness of his own he was carrying all the same.  
  
It wasn’t the same sad as last time. That had been an exhausting sadness. This was quiet, there in the background when he chose to acknowledge it. Things were over, and that was sad. But they were over nonetheless.   
  
He had tried to explain to Ilhoon what had happened, but it had been hard to put into words, everything that had happened, even though he could remember every word spoken. Ilhoon had simply listened to him struggle and then sighed, resting a hand on Sanghyuk’s shoulder, heavy and firm and comforting. “Listen,” he had said, seriously. “It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is how you move on from this.”   
  
Sanghyuk still hadn’t figured it out yet, but this combination of food and TV and comfort was nice. For the moment, it was fine.  
  
He sighed and queued up the next episode. Then he wriggled his way out of the fort and padded to the kitchen with his empty box of food, dumping it in the bin and his fork in the sink to be washed another time. The street lamp outside his kitchen window was flickering on and off. Someone should report it.   
  
His house wards rippled suddenly as something disturbed them. His hand darted to his side instinctively before he remembered he was home, and his dagger was in his bedroom. Before he could move to go fetch it, there was a knock on his front door and he relaxed, tension bleeding out of him.   
  
He’d expected Hakyeon, who came to see him quite often at home, but the addition of Taekwoon and Wonshik and Hongbin was quite surprising. He blinked at them, four vampires standing on his metaphorical welcome mat. “Hello.”  
  
“Hey, kid,” Wonshik said, over Hakyeon’s shoulder. “Can we come in?”   
  
“Uh, sure.” Sanghyuk held the door open, drawing back to let them past. All too late he remembered the construction of blankets he’d made in his living room. He flicked the light on in the kitchen in the hope that it would encourage them all to stay here, and spent a minute blinking in the sudden light, as painful to his eyes as to any vampires after a night in the dark.   
  
Everyone looked so serious that he found himself shifting from one foot to the other, worried. “Is something wrong? What’s happened?”   
  
Hakyeon slipped into one of the chairs around his kitchen table. “We were kind of hoping you could tell us that, Sanghyuk.”   
  
Sanghyuk frowned at him. “I don’t know—”  
  
“It’s about Jaehwan,” said Hongbin bluntly.   
  
Sanghyuk’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them, even as a ball of anxiety started rolling in his stomach. “What about Jaehwan?”   
  
“We know that you came over a few days ago to see him. We could smell it,” Hongbin said, and Sanghyuk tensed, ready to go on the defensive. “Normally it would be your business — yours and Jaehwan’s — but ever since then, Jaehwan has been— he locked himself in his bedroom and he hasn’t stopped crying.”   
  
Of all the things he’d been prepared for, it hadn’t been that. His arms loosened from where they’d been closely crossed in front of his chest, and he blinked in surprise.  
  
“He isn’t feeding, either,” Taekwoon added, more gently than Hongbin. “It is getting dangerous for him.”   
  
“He’s— he’s just— pitching a tantrum,” Sanghyuk said numbly, knowing it was untrue even as he said it.  
  
“Sanghyuk,” Wonshik said, and he sounded tired. “Just tell us what happened.”  
  
Sanghyuk looked between them and felt something heavy settle in his stomach. He exhaled heavily, rubbing at his face. “He told me that he loved me,” he murmured. He waited, a beat, for a reaction and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get one. “Of course, you all already knew he— he loved me.”   
  
Hongbin said, “Yes.”  
  
“I suspected,” Sanghyuk said. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, feeling the surface cold against his hands. “Everything he’s done over the past few months, years, really, I thought— I wondered if that was the reason. But every time I tried to ask him, he just pushed me away. He has been— awful.” He looked up at Hakyeon, who had seen it from the beginning. “More awful that perhaps I was willing to admit.”   
  
“What did you say to him?” Hongbin asked. “When he finally told you?”  
  
“I never thought he would ever tell me, I didn’t know what to say. But he— I told him I didn’t love him back. Because I don’t and I just wanted to be truthful, you know? In a way that he has never been with me before. And he asked me to leave, so I did.”   
  
There was a long stretch of silence. Wonshik glanced at Hongbin who shook his head, chewing his bottom lip. Eventually Taekwoon said, “It explains much. It’s hard for Jaehwan to open up.”   
  
“It’s hard for us all,” Hakyeon said, almost snapping.   
  
“That’s not what I was meaning,” Taekwoon said. He looked disgruntled. Sanghyuk wasn’t sure how he knew that, since it didn’t look much different to his normal expression, but he could.   
  
“No, it’s okay, I know what you meant,” Sanghyuk said softly. “But I can’t love Jaehwan just because he loves me and finally put himself out there enough to tell me. I know what he wanted. He wanted his words to make everything magically okay. But they didn’t, and they can’t. It came too late, I’d already given up on him.”   
  
He wanted to be done. He had thought he would be done already, that it was all cut out of him. But they were looking at him now, expressions expectant. He almost cringed when Taekwoon said, “We must fix this.”  
  
“You want me to go see him,” Sanghyuk said. Even he could hear the resentment in his voice. “After everything, you want me to— I don’t want to see him, Hakyeon. I can’t do it anymore. I _can’t_.”   
  
“Sanghyuk.” Hakyeon stood, taking his hands. His skin was ice cold. “Do you think I would ask you if I had any other options? You know that this is the last thing that I want to ask you to do. But if Jaehwan keeps on like this the bloodlust will claim him and— the thought of him loose like that is concerning. And even before that, he will waste away. We’ve tried talking to him but he won’t listen to any of us. When we went to see him it was— was highly unnerving. He’s falling apart, wasting away, and I don’t think that you want that.”   
  
Sanghyuk shook his head. No, he didn’t want that. And that was the worst part, because he wanted to just leave Jaehwan to his— whatever this was. The aftermath of his own mistakes, really. He wanted to just wash his hands of all responsibility and forget it had ever happened. Part of him already knew that would have never been allowed to happen.   
  
He looked across at Taekwoon. “How long does he have, before he— he snaps?”   
  
Taekwoon thought for a moment. “Usually this would take months, but crying uses up blood too. At this rate, I cannot say when it could happen”  
  
“Could you force him to feed?”   
  
“No,” Taekwoon said. “Our master could, but—” He broke off with a hand gesture as if to indicate the lack of maker currently.   
  
Sanghyuk sighed and looked at Hakyeon. “I don’t want that. I don’t want him to end up like that.” Neither did he, he was dismayed to find out, like the thought of Jaehwan alone and in pain. “But I don’t know how to fix this. What do you even want me to do?”   
  
“He may feed if it’s you,” Taekwoon murmured.   
  
“Why don’t you—”  
  
“There’s nothing we can do we haven’t done already, kid,” Wonshik said. “He— when we tried, he got violent. He’s completely volatile. Nothing we can say is ever going to get through to him, not when he’s like this.”   
  
“He resents us for having things that he cannot have,” Hakyeon said in a low voice, and turned away towards Taekwoon.   
  
“And you want me to go in there?” Sanghyuk asked, unimpressed.   
  
“He’s softer with you,” Taekwoon said, giving him a level look. “He may be kinder to you, more willing to take a blood bag if it is you offering it. I doubt, even now, he would hurt you.”   
  
Sanghyuk wanted to argue, but he knew there was nothing to argue about. Even now he didn’t think he would be scared of Jaehwan. That didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to have to rake over the ashes of their relationship again. He had wanted to be _done_.   
  
He could feel the wetness in his eyes and blinked the tears away furiously. “I’m mad at him still,” he admitted. “And at myself, for caring.”   
  
Hakyeon swooped forward and kissed his forehead. Sanghyuk grimaced and moved away. “You are so kind,” Hakyeon said. “But it’s no longer a fault in you.”   
  
“Don’t,” Sanghyuk said quietly. “I’m mad at you too, at all of you. Damn you all for making me do this.”   
  
“If there was another way—” Wonshik began.  
  
“But there isn’t,” Sanghyuk said. He thought of the blanket fort he’d built. He wanted to find a pillow and scream into it. “I’ll go see him, we don’t have any other option. But not tonight. I need— my own time, to prepare.”   
  
“Of course,” Hakyeon said. He looked on the verge of tears himself.  
  
“I just— can you all leave?” He sat down heavily at his kitchen table, and motioned to his front door. “I’d really like you all to leave.”   
  
“Of course,” Hakyeon repeated. Sanghyuk didn’t watch them go but he thought he felt the faint brush of lips against the top of his head before they were gone and the wards of the house breathed easy again.   
  
——  
  
Sanghyuk stifled a yawn as he locked the car doors, under the pool of light from the streetlamp he’d managed to park under. He had slept so little the night before that he’d almost managed to convince himself that he was actually sick when he called up work to get tonight off. Between the tiredness and the unsettled way his stomach had been roiling all day, he really did just want to go crawl back into bed.   
  
He took the walk to the alley and through the tunnels slowly, telling himself he wasn’t dawdling. But the truth was that he felt sad and annoyed and _resentful_ , most of all. Resentful of himself for coming back here again after all the times he’d told himself he wouldn’t, resentful of Jaehwan for making him come here, resentful of the others for expecting it of him.   
  
He didn’t bother knocking on the front door. He just opened it and strode into the house, not caring if nobody came to greet him, which no one did. He had suspected that Wonshik and Hongbin would make themselves scarce, or at least leave him alone to do this as he wanted to. Jaehwan, well, Jaehwan spoke for himself, judging by the shut bedroom door that greeted Sanghyuk after he’d made his way through the darkened halls.   
  
He knocked sharply on the door, unsurprised when there was no answer. Slowly, he pushed it open, half-expecting for it to be locked, or for something to press back against him, but the door opened without restriction.   
  
There was shattered glass by his feet, sprayed out across the carpet. He stepped over it gingerly and looked over at the bed, where a lump of blankets was shifting, moving, falling apart as Jaehwan sat upright.   
  
Even prepared as Sanghyuk was, the sight of Jaehwan came as a shock. He looked wretched, face a bloody mess. He was wearing the same clothes Sanghyuk had last seen him in, now smeared with red, and he was looking at Sanghyuk like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. When he spoke his voice was barely more than a whisper. “Love?”   
  
Silently, Sanghyuk picked his way across the room, toeing off his shoes when he was no longer in danger of stepping on any shards of glass, and then climbed up onto the bed. He crossed his legs, staring at Jaehwan, schooling his face into neutrality. “Hello.”   
  
Jaehwan braced his hands on the bed, using them to steady himself as he mirrored Sanghyuk’s pose. His movements were slow, tired, and his wrists were thin enough that Sanghyuk thought even he could snap one of them. Something like bleak hope was spreading across Jaehwan’s face. “Did you come here because—”  
  
“I came here because the others asked me to,” Sanghyuk said. “Because you haven’t been feeding and they’re worried about you.”   
  
“No, they aren’t.” There was that strain of self pity in Jaehwan’s voice that Sanghyuk hated. He gave Jaehwan his best unimpressed look, one that Wonshik had once said made him look like Hakyeon.  
  
“Yes they are,” he said. “So am I.”   
  
“But you said—”  
  
“Just because I’m not in love with you doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Sanghyuk snapped. He took a deep breath, trying to regain some calm. “And I resent being made to come here because you can’t deal with this.”   
  
Jaehwan’s face twisted. He shoved his hair from his face with a hand, shaky and jerky. “You don’t understand,” he spat. “You don’t know what it feels like—”   
  
“No, I don’t. I made sure of that.” Jaehwan scowled, confused. “I always knew you would destroy me if I let too much of you in. And you wouldn’t have cared, not a bit. If our roles were reversed right now, do you think you’d be here with me?”  
  
Jaehwan was quiet for a long minute, his face falling further with each passing second. By the time he spoke, he looked stricken, his voice broken. “No. I would have thought it was funny.”   
  
It was almost a relief to hear him say it. “You never took me seriously. Not even once. You always thought I was just a silly little human and—” Jaehwan tried to interrupt, but Sanghyuk fought on. “Don’t deny it, Jaehwan, you’d told me that often enough. But see, I always knew who you were, especially after the beginning. I have always taken you seriously.”   
  
Jaehwan stared at him, eyes roving over Sanghyuk’s face. Whatever he saw there made him whisper, “I didn’t want this.”  
  
“No,” said Sanghyuk. “I didn’t want it either.”   
  
Jaehwan reached out and touched Sanghyuk’s knee. Sanghyuk fought hard against any reaction. “Is it really that difficult to just love me?”   
  
“Yes,” Sanghyuk said bluntly. Jaehwan actually managed to look hurt by that. “Oh, come on, Jaehwan. You don’t get to spend three hundred years raking claws and teeth over everyone around you, drawing blood at every chance, then get mad when people would rather steer clear.”  
  
A tear slid slowly down Jaehwan’s cheek, along the tracks laid down by all the ones before them. “I just— I thought that it was going to— that once you understood, it would explain it all—”   
  
“How?” Sanghyuk stared at him. “How could it change anything? There’s magic in this world, but there’s no magic that could make me understand the thoughts that you barely even admitted to yourself. This isn’t how a relationship works, this isn’t how communication even works. You need to talk to people if they’re going to know you like you want me to know you.”   
  
“So maybe I could—”  
  
“No.” Sanghyuk felt the desperation clawing at him, the need to get Jaehwan to _see_. “Jaehwan, you’re just not listening to me. This will never work, because you don’t want to talk to me, or open up to me. You’re only interested in having me for yourself. I’ve said it so many times, I’m _not yours_.”   
  
“Why not?” Jaehwan retorted. “I’m already yours.”   
  
“You’re changing the rules,” Sanghyuk said coldly. “Don’t fucking joke with me, Jaehwan.”   
  
Jaehwan sighed and for a moment he looked exhausted, right down to his bones. It was an exhaustion that Sanghyuk thought he recognised, maybe, the deep circles below Jaehwan’s eyes, the thinness of his skin across his cheekbones. He’d seen it looking in the mirror more than once.   
  
“Come here,” he said, softly. Jaehwan blinked at him, slow and sluggish again. “You haven’t fed for days, you’ve depleted yourself. You need to feed. That’s why I came here, to make you feed.”   
  
“I’m okay—”  
  
“No, you arent. Please, Jaehwan, I’m too tired to fight about this as well. Just come here.”   
  
Jaehwan shuffled forward on the bed, looking confused and wary. Sanghyuk rose up onto his knees, holding out his arm, the inside of his elbow turned towards Jaehwan’s mouth. It seemed to take Jaehwan a moment to figure out what he was offering, and when he took Sanghyuk’s lower arm, his hands were so cold that Sanghyuk shuddered.   
  
Jaehwan nosed at the skin of his arm, and Sanghyuk held himself stiff and tense. It was hard, he found, remarkably hard, to stop himself from lifting his free hand and carding it through Jaehwan’s hair. He had chosen the inside of his arm to take away from the intimacy, but all he could he remember was seeing Taekwoon and Hakyeon like this, the memory still clear but soft, and he didn’t think he’d been as successful as he’d hoped.   
  
Jaehwan’s mouth bit down just below his elbow, sharp and painful, and then Sanghyuk could feel him feeding. For the first time, he remembered exactly why he was here — the fear that they had all had that Jaehwan would lose control, snap like Hongbin would snap. And here he was, a human, walking into that lair and offering up his blood for Jaehwan to have. Trusting that Jaehwan wouldn’t lose control.   
  
Jaehwan pulled back after a few gulping mouthfuls. Even just that little amount made him looked more awake, better. He kept his head bowed over Sanghyuk’s arm, the two of them frozen in a strange tableau for a few moments.   
  
“I’m scared,” Jaehwan whispered.   
  
Sanghyuk slumped back into a sitting position on the bed. “Of what?”   
  
There was silence again. Sanghyuk drew his arm back but Jaehwan stayed hunched over. “Of loving you,” he said eventually. “Of continuing to love you, and never have you love me back. Of— of being alone. This pain is beyond anything I’ve ever felt before.”   
  
“Jaehwan,” Sanghyuk said softly, “ask Taekwoon, ask Wonshik— love always hurts.”   
  
“I’m scared of opening up,” Jaehwan said. He looked up, direct at Sanghyuk, eyes full of blood again. “I’m scared of what I’m going to find inside myself that’s worse than what I already am, of finding something that makes you hate me even more than you do.”   
  
“Maybe you will,” Sanghyuk said. It was the hardest thing in the world, to keep himself from touching Jaehwan. But he couldn’t, because he knew that if he did, he would crumble, and he needed to be strong enough for them both here.   
  
“I don’t know how to— I don’t want to, it _hurts_.”  
  
“You’re not just lying to me like this, you’re lying to yourself. You’ve spent three hundred years lying to yourself and all falling in love with me has done is expose that. You couldn’t keep going like that, Jaehwan. You just couldn’t. It’s time to come clean.”   
  
Jaehwan stared at him, into his eyes, searching, and a second later Jaehwan’s face crumpled and he pitched forward, face pressed into the bedsheets, sobs wracking his body. Sanghyuk fisted his hands in the sheets, chewing the inside of his mouth against his own tears. He didn’t touch Jaehwan, but he stayed with him.   
  
That had to be enough, for now.


End file.
